Florida is bracing for the landfall of category five Hurricane Milton, as officials have pleaded with residents to follow evacuation orders.
Given the potential destruction of the storm, President Joe Biden postponed an upcoming trip to Germany and Angola in order to oversee preparations for the storm – in addition to the ongoing response to Hurricane Helene.
“This could be the worst storm to hit Florida in over a century, and God-willing it won’t be, but it’s looking like that right now,” Mr Biden said.
He added: “I just don’t think I can be out of the country at this time.”
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0:23
Long lines of traffic as Florida evacuates
‘We haven’t seen a storm like this in a lifetime’
Florida governor Ron De Santis said on Tuesday morning: “Now is the time to execute your [evacuation] plan … but that time is running out.”
His office declared a state of emergency for some of the worst affected areas.
A similar one was later declared in parts of Georgia too.
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State workers rushed to clear debris from Hurricane Helene as evacuation orders are in place for over one million people in Florida’s west-coast counties.
Image: A message is seen outside of an apartment in the Davis Islands community of Tampa, Florida. Pic: AP
Image: Residents are in a race against time to clear up debris from Hurricane Helene, which officials warned could be turned into projectiles by Hurricane Milton. Pic: AP
Image: Workers board up a grocery store to protect it from Hurricane Milton, in Progreso, Mexico. Pic: AP
Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News: “You have to evacuate, it [Hurricane Milton] is not survivable.”
Such is the power of Hurricane Milton that, despite forecasters expecting it to weaken before landfall, it could land a once-in-a-century hit on the cities of Tampa and St Petersburg, engulfing the regions with possibly deadly storm surges.
“This is the real deal here with Milton,” Tampa mayor Jane Castor told a Monday news conference. “If you want to take on Mother Nature, she wins 100% of the time.”
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Weatherman tearful over ‘horrific’ hurricane
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Ms Castor was even more blunt.
She told the US outlet: “I can say without any dramatisation whatsoever: if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die.”
Image: A person rides his bike through a flooded street in the rain in Progreso, Yucatan state, Mexico. Pic: AP
Pasco County is located on Florida’s west coast and its director of emergency management Andrew Fossa echoed the warnings from other officials.
He said: “I hate to say it like this – Pasco County’s going to get a black eye from this one.
“We haven’t seen a storm like this in a lifetime.”
Amid the warnings from state officials, federal authorities are also readying their response to the hurricane.
White House spokesperson Emilie Simons said the Biden administration has established two staging bases stocked with 20 million meals and 40 million litres of water and has nearly 900 staff members in the region.
Image: A boarded-up store remains open for now ahead of Hurricane Milton. Pic: AP
Image: A couple sits on the beach as Hurricane Milton advances past Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida.
Pic: Reuters
Roads clogged in face of 12ft storm surges
The hurricane is expected to come close to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula en route to striking Florida’s densely populated coast late on Wednesday or early Thursday.
Once there, forecasters warned the storm could bring eight to 12ft (2.4-3.6m) storm surges, leading to further possible evacuation orders being issued along the Gulf Coast.
Image: The projected route of Hurricane Milton
A stream of vehicles headed north on Interstate 75, the main road on the west side of the peninsula, as residents followed evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, traffic clogged up the southbound lanes of the road for miles as others headed for the relative safety of Fort Lauderdale and Miami on the other side of the state.
Air travel fared no better as by Tuesday afternoon, almost 700 flights had been cancelled, with that figure expected to rise as more than 1,500 flights scheduled for Wednesday were also cancelled, according to flight tracking data provider FlightAware.
Image: President Joe Biden speaks about the federal government response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton. Pic: Reuters
Several airports have said they are pausing operations ahead of the hurricane’s landfall, as Orlando International Airport, one of the busiest in the US, said it would close on Wednesday morning, while Tampa International said it was closed on Tuesday.
Florida’s Department of Corrections said it had evacuated 4,636 inmates, while the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned if people didn’t evacuate on Tuesday “there will likely not be enough time to wait to leave on Wednesday”.
Meanwhile, energy companies in Florida began shutting down their pipelines and fuel-delivery terminals ahead of landfall.
Even some of Florida’s world-famous tourist attractions weren’t immune from the hurricane, with both Disney World and Universal Orlando among the theme parks set to close.
Image: Sofia Andreeva and her uncle Ivaylo Kanchev board up their home in St Petersburg, Florida. Pic: Reuters
Image: People prepare sandbags ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Orlando, Florida. Pic: Reuters
200mph gusts
The storm took experts by surprise in how quickly it intensified.
In less than two days, Hurricane Milton went from just forming a tropical storm with winds of 40mph to a chart-busting Category five hurricane – before getting even stronger with gusts said to be over 200mph.
After weakening to a Category four hurricane, the NHC said on Tuesday that Hurricane Milton had rebounded in intensity back to a Category five hurricane once more, and was forecast to remain “extremely dangerous” until landfall even if it did weaken again.
The huge storm comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene claimed over 200 lives, and left debris littered across the state – which Ms Castor said she fears Hurricane Milton could use “as a weapon” and turn into projectiles.
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Veteran hurricane scientists have called the US storm season so far one of the weirdest of their lives as it staggered through a recent quiet period before exploding into action with five hurricanes popping up between 26 September and 6 October.
A man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration has been returned to the US to face criminal charges.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was charged in an indictment filed in federal court in Tennessee with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US, attorney general Pam Bondi said on Friday.
Court records have shown the indictment was filed on 21 May, more than two months after he was deported from the US under a controversial 18th-century wartime law.
Image: US attorney general Pam Bondi, alongside her deputy Todd Blanche, outlined the charges at a news conference. Pic: AP
In a statement, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Andrew Rossman said it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure he received due process.
“Today’s action proves what we’ve known all along – that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,” he said.
Salvadoran Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported from Maryland despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
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On Friday, Ms Bondi outlined the charges at a news conference, saying: “The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring.
“He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found – smuggling people throughout our country… MS-13 [international criminal gang] members, violent gang terrorist organisation members… throughout our country.
“He will be prosecuted in our country, sentenced in our country if convicted and then returned after completion of his sentence.”
Ms Bondi said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Abrego Garcia to the US after American officials presented his government with an arrest warrant.
Image: Chris Van Hollen (R) speaks to Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: Press Office Senator Van Hollen/AP
Democrat senator Chris Van Hollen travelled to El Salvador in April to meet Abrego Garcia, arguing his constitutional rights to due process were being ignored.
Critics of Donald Trump have pointed to the deportation of Abrego Garcia as an example of the excesses of the Republican president’s aggressive immigration policies.
US District Judge Paula Xinis has opened a probe into what, if anything, Mr Trump’s administration has done to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.
Image: Jennifer Vasquez Sura (R) filed a legal complaint over the deportation of her husband. Pic: AP
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Officials responded by alleging that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang – something his lawyers have strongly denied.
In a separate statement, Pam Bondi also attacked what she called the “Fake News Media” and repeated the – yet unproven – allegations against Abrego Garcia.
“The Justice Department’s Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools.
“Abrego Garcia was never an innocent ‘Maryland Man’- Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable.”
Senior White House officials will meet with a Chinese delegation in London on Monday for the next round of trade talks, US President Donald Trump has said.
The meeting comes after a phone call between Mr Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, which the US president said was “very positive” – lasting about an hour and a half.
Speaking to reporters on Friday from Air Force One, the president added that it was a “good talk”, describing the deal as “complicated”, but one that “will bring us a lot of money”.
He also said: “I get along well with Xi and China.”
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0:54
US and China reach agreement on tariffs
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the upcoming London meeting “should go very well” and added that treasury secretary Scott Bessent, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer would represent the US at the talks.
It is unclear who will represent China.
The two countries are at an impasse over tariffs and a dispute involving critical rare earth mineral exports, in which China remains the dominant producer.
On 12 May, China and the US struck a 90-day deal in Geneva to pause retaliatory tariffs placed on each other since Mr Trump was inaugurated in January.
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The US president said the move was part of a “total reset” in relations.
The agreement prompted a global surge in stock markets and US indexes that were in, or approaching, bear market levels.
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3:44
US and China end trade war
The temporary deal saw the US reduce its 145% tariff to 30% on Chinese goods.
China also agreed to reduce its 125% retaliatory tariffs to 10% on US goods.
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The Chinese foreign ministry said the US president initiated the call, and they had asked him to “remove the negative measures” in place against China.
It also said that Mr Trump said “the US loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America”.
This is despite his administration previously saying it will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US.
Since Mr Trump’s re-election, the president has frequently issued threats of punitive trade measures against US partners, only to backtrack at the last minute.
Israel has issued a fresh warning to civilians in northern Gaza, saying its military is about to carry out intensive operations there.
It comes after Israel said rockets were fired from the area.
Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip have marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays, amid little hope the conflict will end any time soon.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins, with men and children forced to hold the traditional Eid al Adha prayers in the open air, and as food supplies dwindle.
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8:49
UN: 500,000 are food insecure in Gaza
Food and aid were blocked from entering the Palestinian territory for more than two months, but a trickle of supplies has been allowed in over the last few weeks.
The UN said it cannot distribute much of the aid, due to the risk of looters and restrictions on movement.
“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis.
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“There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses… The conditions are very, very harsh.”
The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia.
It is the second year Muslims in Gaza have been unable to travel to the country to perform the traditional pilgrimage.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages, with a third of them believed to be alive. The rest have been released in ceasefire agreements, with forces rescuing eight living hostages from Gaza and recovering dozens of bodies.
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0:42
Situation in Gaza ‘utterly intolerable’
Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in its military campaign, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants in its figures.
Around 90% of the population of two million has been displaced.